New Samsung DRAM to enable smartphones with 6GB of RAM

Samsung has announced the mass production of the industry’s first 12Gb LPDDR4 DRAM.
This opens the door for smartphones with 6GB of RAM – double that of Samsung’s own current flagship smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S6.
While the new chip is built to the same basic 20nm production standard, it provides some notable advantages over the preceding 8Gb LPDDR4.
At 4,266, the 12Gb version is more than 30 percent faster, while it consumes 20 percent less energy. Samsung also claims that manufacturing efficiency of the new 12Gb LPDDR4 is 50 percent higher than the previous standard.
The benefits of 6GB of RAM in the next generation of smartphones will be “seamless multitasking and maximum performance within the latest operating system (OS) environments,” according to Samsung (via BusinessWire).
Related: How much RAM does a phone need?
That last part is doubtless in reference to the shift to 64-bit in the latest versions of Android and iOS, as well as in the latest mobile CPUs. Such 64-bit set-ups require more than 4GB of RAM to really operate to their full potential, so Samsung’s news could represent a noticeable step up in smartphone performance and flexibility.
Beyond smartphones and tablets, Samsung reckons that its new LPDDR4 mobile memory will be used in ultra-slim PCs, digital appliances and automotive devices in the coming years.
Next, take a look at our S6 Edge+ vs S6 Edge comparison video: